Federal prosecutors have charged five people accused of working for Russian intelligence in a network that allegedly tried to recruit people in the United States to surveil and kill a prominent Russian dissident.
The Justice Department announced the charges Tuesday after an indictment was unsealed in federal court in the Southern District of New York. All five defendants remain at large.
According to the indictment, the network has conspired to conduct and has carried out attacks and murders around the world since at least 2024, including in the United States. Prosecutors say it also commissioned attacks on civilian and military infrastructure in European countries aligned, or seen as aligned, with Ukraine.
Alleged Plot in the U.S.
This summer, prosecutors allege, the network recruited a U.S. resident to surveil and kill a prominent Russian dissident it believed was living in the country. The department identified the two only as U.S. Resident-1 and Victim-1.
The resident is a Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn, and the dissident was believed to be in Washington, D.C., The Associated Press reported, citing the indictment.
Yaidel Delgado Suarez allegedly sent the resident two locations linked to the dissident, told him how to watch them and promised between $1,000 and $1,500 for the job. The resident conducted the surveillance and sent Suarez several photographs and videos of the locations, according to the indictment.
Suarez and Angel Eduardo Castro then offered the resident $40,000 to “eliminate” or “disappear” the dissident, prosecutors allege. When the resident said he did not want to carry out the killing himself, the two men asked whether he knew “someone [who] can do the work.”
Suarez also allegedly claimed he had “people in Mexico” who could carry out the killing but had been delayed. Prosecutors say he tried to enlist several others in the United States to target the dissident and other potential victims, offering them substantial payments.
“It is our job to stop America’s adversaries from unleashing violence and terror on American soil.”
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg described the defendants as alleged members of “a global assassination network” that sought to recruit Americans and foreigners “to carry out killings at the behest of the Kremlin.”
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald for the Southern District of New York called the network “brazen, aggressive, and far-reaching.” James C. Barnacle Jr. and Darren B. Cox, who lead the FBI’s New York and Washington field offices, credited their agents and partner agencies with disrupting the operation.
The Defendants
Three defendants are high-ranking members of the network, prosecutors say. They include Yuri Khrameev, 63, of Russia, a former Russian intelligence colonel known as “Colonel Yuri.” He allegedly helped recruit several people to kill perceived Russian dissidents.
His son, Kirill Khrameev, 27, is an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. AP reported that the FSB is Russia’s principal security agency and the successor to the Soviet KGB.
Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, is a Cuban national and an influential figure in the Cuban diaspora in Russia, according to the Justice Department release. He is accused of coordinating attacks for the
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